It was a happy Saturday! The underlayment was put down in the kitchen and in a large portion of the living area; progress was made on laying down the unfinished pine floors as well.
The floor has been a long journey. We purchased the material back in the Spring from Lumber Liquidator. When it arrived at the property, the driver initially balked at having to unload it by hand to put in the garage. We are not sure why they would not have sent a pallet jack with the load. That weekend, we spent over 2 hours carrying the wood into the house to acclimate. It has been living in the master bedroom ever since. Four months should be enough time to acclimate!
We started by moving everything out of the living room, dining room, and kitchen. All of our tools are now in the basement where they belong. This small thing represents progress, as it has been easier to keep our tools on the first floor so they were close at hand for projects. This is hopefully a sign that we will soon be able to occupy the first floor. For the short term, however, our refrigerator is now in the hallway.
I used our scale floor plan to estimate the number of rows of flooring it would take to get across the width of the room. The main area was about 30.8 rows across, which meant I should not have a skinny row when I reached the opposite wall. I cut the groove off the first row, removing about 1/4-inch to eliminate that as a weak spot along the wall, but did not have to remove additional material to adjust the width of the last row.
I undercut the doorjambs using an oscillating tool and sanded the patches in the floor we had made.The floor was then swept and vacuumed. We next laid out and stapled an underlayment to the subfloor. We found the midpoint between the two long walls, and snapped a chalkline. This will hopefully help to keep the floor parallel to the walls so the floor looks straight as one looks across the first floor. We then set perpendicular lines to this, and snapped additional layout lines so I could periodically measure and make adjustments to the flooring to keep it parallel to the walls. We then set one last layout line about 4-3/4 inches from the wall where the flooring would start. I then checked the gap between the line and the wall to verify that we would be at least 1/4-inch from the wall for the entire first course.
We moved the starter course layout line a couple of times, and then it was time to install the first course. We are using 2-inch finish nails, and a nailgun I bought on clearance at Home Depot. Even with the discount this was a cost, but it is easier than drilling and nailing by hand. I cut out a small section for the vent, and then realized I did not account for the 1/4-inch gap and had cut out too much! Fortunately we had bought a sample vent to check the fit before the piece was nailed down. I cut a new piece for the vent, and nailed it into place.
After the first row went in, it was just a matter of laying out pieces so there was no overlap of joints, making sure things were aligned, and nailing the flooring into place with a flooring nailer I borrowed from a friend. Considering the boards are 5 inches wide, It seems like this should go fast, but after about a half-day of work, we had only 7 rows intalled. Still, it was fun to walk on and marvel at this narrow section! So far it looks good and feels very solid.
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